Pierre-Yves Péchoux · 1986
Pierre-Yves Choux reviews the 1978 National Atlas of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, prepared and printed in Sweden for the Secretariat of Planning with Libyan academic and institutional assistance, using statistical and cartographic data available in 1976–1977. Its analytical maps mostly use small scales and cover relief, climate, agriculture and industry. Choux observes that the 1:2,000,000 Sebha map shows Libyan claims along the southern borders with Algeria, Niger and Chad that differ from generally accepted boundaries. Maps of Cyrenaica at 1:1,000,000 and Tripolitania at 1:250,000 show major relief features, roads and settlement distribution. Scarce larger-scale maps cover urban planning and land use, archaeological areas and agricultural development; accompanying aerial photographs show agricultural settlement works financed by oil revenues. Choux situates the atlas within Libya's sudden oil wealth, linking hydrogeological, water-resource and petroleum-area maps to exploitation, and maps of Precambrian and Paleozoic surfaces beneath the Mesozoic to petroleum exploration. Historical maps place Libya in the Arab world; he finds the Gemini satellite images more incidental. He judges the atlas one of the best available sources on contemporary Libya and of a quality rarely matched among states in the region.
Pierre-Yves Péchoux · 1990
This article reviews an atlas of Libya. The atlas first situates Libya within the global, Islamic, Arab, and African contexts, and across time, using historical maps that are more abundant for the medieval period than for the colonial era. Its main maps are mostly at scales between 1:5,000,000 (geology, pedology, vegetation, population, etc.) and 1:18,000,000 (climatic data), while also including more detailed thematic maps on soil suitability, agricultural development projects, urban planning, and hydrocarbon exploitation perimeters. This clear and convenient atlas (also available in a fully Arabic version) is certainly the best available means for a serious introduction to modern Libya. Although the map of airfields may be incomplete, especially in the south, such discretion is not specific to Libya.
